Enumerated Powers

Authority explicitly granted by either a Constitutional provision or statute. The term is most widely used in describing the authority assigned to the federal government under the Constitution. But the term has an application in Arizona family law, even though the term is rarely used. In 18th-Century England, divorce was handled by the ecclesiastical courts (i.e., the church issued divorces, not the government); therefore, when the United State adopted English common law in the Constitution (i.e., Courts could follow and apply the traditional English laws in determining disputes), no common law was included for divorce. This means that divorce courts in Arizona only have the authority assigned to them by Arizona’s statutes. For example, Arizona’s statutes require the Court divide community property but with separate property, it may only assign that property to the spouse who owns it (though the Court may also impose a lien on that separate property). In one case, one spouse had damaged the other spouse’s separate property, and the trial court awarded that spouse $5,000.00. But the Court of Appeals reversed because that it exceeded the Court’s statutory authority, which, again, is limited to merely assinging each spouse their property.